


Did I See You See Me

by hopha (sophelstien), Radiation



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Build up, F/M, hinting at bdsm??, pre-pwp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:39:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophelstien/pseuds/hopha, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiation/pseuds/Radiation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time she felt control was when she threw a punch at twelve. A boy called her a street rat at school, his laugh echoing down the hallways, and all the timidity melted away and left only calculated anger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did I See You See Me

**Author's Note:**

> title's from a song by the xx  
> fanfic trade with my real mvp sophie <3  
> i honestly dont know anything about acadamia or grad school or alcohol so just bear with me here  
> also lol first real fanfic in my seven years as a weeb

The first time she felt control was when she threw a punch at twelve. A boy called her a street rat at school, his laugh echoing down the hallways, and all the timidity melted away and left only calculated anger. Kuvira struck clean on her first try, and he had a black eye for the next week. Suyin tried to be disappointed, but she could only be proud.

Her first kiss was when she was fifteen, with a boy in her math class who thought he was smarter than her but she knew he was all wrong. He called her honey and kissed her softly, as if she was a delicate little flower. It was all so boring. She fucked him a year later, biting his lip, his neck, sucking bruises onto his skin, and by then he only called her his queen.

She felt power surge through her with adoration. From whipped boyfriends and rough hookups in college, to being the girl everyone turned to for help in chemistry. She knew she was meant to lead. Somewhere, somehow, it was meant to happen.

“Kuvira, do you have the lecture notes for discussion?” Bataar brought coffee for her as he faithfully does every morning, and she payed for it in giving him copies of her outlines. It was a system they had created over the last four years. He would set up labs, she would make powerpoints, he got lattes, she got booze. She felt anxious around him constantly. He was a variable she could not control, the only one so far to push back and be on the same page as her.

The path to control was slow. For Bataar and for school. Two more years. When she was done grad school, she could get a fellowship, she could do the research she wanted, she could give academia a run for its money, but for now she was stuck as another t.a./researcher with another crappy advisor. At least she had a triple shot in her drink.

“Are we going to finally check the numbers on this bet, by the way?” Bataar asked, settling into his desk cluttered with blueprints, his legs hitting hers in the close corners.

“So you can lose again? We’ve been doing this for four years, why are you humiliating yourself?”

“Just pull up the numbers. We both started with 30, right?”

“Yup. And we’re going to have lost ten each. It happens every year.” Kuvira made a point to have a third of her freshman drop her labs and discussions every semester. She would make sure they would get too hungover the weekends before their first quizzes to study. Bullshit was not something she tolerated. Bataar, on the other hand, loved helping his students. From late night “tutoring” sessions to excessive extra credit. Her students barely passed her classes, but his could barely assist her around a lab.

She had gotten to her quota, all the freshman she didn’t think could handle it had already left or pleasantly surprised her. She had already made sure Bataar’s students were at the same parties getting the same alcohol supplied to them. She expected a present for a five year streak, honestly.

Until Bataar turned his monitor towards her. Two students dropped. That’s it. And the rest weren’t failing even without his extra credit brought into the gradebook yet.

“What the hell?!” She turned to glare at him, but he only gave her a little smile, silently pleased that he finally had gotten back to her.

“Guess all those insecure freshman love my tutoring sessions.”

“Ugh, gross. Stop fucking your students. Your life doesn’t need to be a porno in disguise.”

“What? And try to hook up with people our age? Zhu Li is chasing after Varrick like there’s no tomorrow, Varrick doesn’t know what he’s doing ever, and literally everyone else in our program are neckbeard friendzoned boys that couldn’t give a blowjob no matter how much they nag about needing to get one.”

“Did you really consider having sex with Varrick?” She stared at him dead in the eye and he couldn’t look her way.

“I was really drunk and he was actually being smart for once and I didn’t do anything, so just ignore that I ever said that.” Kuvira smiled, knowing this would be good blackmail. She was avoiding thinking of the fact that she just lost her bet, but Bataar looked back at the screen and now he had the look he got whenever he has a plan. She knew that this just couldn’t be good.

“So, what did we say your punishment was again for losing?” He asked, but before he can continue, Zhu Li comes in, late from dragging Varrick out of his apartment to work. He strolled in behind her, wearing a three piece navy suit as if he was some sort of professional and not the neighborhood crazy genius.

“Hey guys! I got a new idea, and I’ll be needing your help. Zhu Li has the experiment outline! We’re gonna figure out how to synthesize ATP and use it in nanotech to turn into endless clean energy,” It almost sounded like a good idea, but the last time Varrick tried something similar it almost blew up the entire bioengineering wing, “but first I need you guys to do the thing where you record how fast these cells with the beta tech reproduce. The petri dishes are in the fridge, you’ll need to record growth every three hours starting now until Monday!”

It was Friday. It was a Friday, at nine in the morning, and he expected them to stay in the lab for the midnight and three am results because even though a computer could record it, he wanted them to do it.

Zhu Li almost spared them a look of pity before returning to her statuesque glare, putting the giant file (Kuvira remembered when she thought outlines were supposed to be brief and laughed a little on the inside) down between their two computers.  

They had tried to skip out on these results before, but Varrick had routed the school cameras to his phone (illegally) so he could make sure they were there when they were supposed to be.

“What if we have plans tonight?” Kuvira asked, thinking of all the lies she can come up with, because if it’s good enough, Varrick will forget science for fun.

“Ha! You guys are a bunch of nerds, you’re not going to be doing anything but drinking beer alone while you watch cosmos on netflix, so you might as well just do that here!”

She wanted to scream, to punch him, to draw blood, but she knew she was here for the long haul. And that meant not killing the man who would go over her thesis with her.

The worst part, was when he was in a good mood and had fallen from his normal manic state to one where most of the population function, he was amazing. He was helpful. But that was only for two hours every three weeks and the other 98% of the time, Kuvira had to be her own helper.

Varrick practically danced out of the room and Zhu Li settled down at her desk, typing at the speed of light while Bataar and Kuvira marinated in the fact that their weekend, and possibly the next few months were ruined.

“Your punishment could be doing these experiments alone,” he said to break the silence but Kuvira was in no mood for that.

“Fuck that. We had agreed on terms. I’m grading your shitty students papers for the semester. I’m not suffering through this tedium alone.”

And that was that. By the time she had finished her classes for the day and got back to her office, she had a pile of Bataar’s papers next to the experiment’s file to finish grading. Plus, all the tests she hadn’t bothered to review because she was so sure Bataar would be the one spending all night going over them. It was seven.

She went home, strung out from dealing with a crying student from earlier in the day, to the experiment that wasn’t even her own, to dealing with Bataar rubbing in the fact that she lost something. She hadn’t lost a fight in a while, not since she was seventeen and she fought three boys on the hockey team for calling Opal a dyke.

Kuvira fed the cat, showered, and ate a mediocre dinner before taking blankets and bourbon back to the lab. She sure wasn’t going to suffer through this sober. It was almost nine. Her and Bataar had been taking a few minutes out to check the results all day, in between classes, during classes, but it wouldn’t surprise her if he tried to bail. He had been getting cocky by six and she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to see him by now. Even if he was the only person who didn’t think she was a bitch.

The results themselves would’ve been fascinating if she cared. Bataar made it in the nick of time and they added another number to the chart. The cells actually were growing. The biotech inside of it was reproducing as if it was just another ribosome. It didn’t make her feel too much better, but Bataar started rambling about how amazing it could be.

By the time it was midnight, they had settled onto the floor by the microscopes and were marathoning Cosmos, because fuck Varrick, and were passing the bottle of bourbon back and forth. They paused only to slowly creep up and check the petri dishes again before going back to netflix.

By three in the morning, they had built a fort out of pillows and blankets they had brought, and were half awake when they recorded the data. Kuvira felt herself burning up underneath all the blankets. She stole the bottle from Bataar and retreated to Varrick’s office, the only one with windows, and opened one up. She didn’t want to fall asleep cuddling Bataar. That shit was just weird.

“Heyyyy, get back here with that!” Bataar followed her, because she had his alcohol and because he couldn’t bear to be the guy who was in a pillow fort alone.

“Nah, it’s too hot in there and Varrick has the best chairs to sleep on.” She collapsed onto the rolling chair, legs splayed apart.

“That’s probably what he does in this office all day.”

“Probably.” She looked at Bataar, at this unassuming grad student with neohipster glasses and felt her blood boil. How did he get laid more often than her?

“So, Bolin dropped. Did fucking him not work?” She asked, because jealousy was just as potent for her as the cheap liquor she was drinking.

“He changed majors and everything! And I didn’t fuck him for the record. I promise. Pinky promise.” Bataar stumbled over his words, excited and defensive and drunk.

“I find that hard to believe.” Kuvira never let her words slur, careful to pronounce everything carefully.

“I bet you’re jealous. Are you jealous? Oh my god, you are! You want to fuck all the freshman.”

“He’s a sophmore!! And I wouldn’t want to do that anyways. He wouldn’t like what I like.” Kuvira held onto the bottle loosely between her legs, knowing Bataar was edging closer so he could get to it. He gave himself too much credit for stealth.

“So, what do you like?” His hand reached for the bottle and her fingers tigthened around its neck. She looked up at him, but the fluorescents behind his head gave him a halo that hurt her vision.

“You know what I like,” she said, watching the way his adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, “it would scare him away.” His hand was against hers against the bottle, too warm and too sweet. She hated sweet.

All of a sudden she wondered if maybe the gloating was his way for begging for punishment. Others followed Kuvira so easily, but he fought and tore at her and made her want to fight even harder. She always restrained. Because he would not make her lose control. No one would. But she thought of the way he would look blindfolded, still making snide comments until she gagged him, and instantly felt euphoria.

 _Maybe it wouldn’t be a horrible idea to kiss him_ , she thought, _maybe he likes what I like._ She used her leverage to pull him down halfway into her lap and Bataar followed instantly. They’re drunken make outs were a regular anomaly they didn’t talk about, that they forgot happened in the first place. But once they got back to the teeth and the hair pulling and the bourbon or tequila or vodka abandoned and just them, it was falling back into step.

He pulled her hard enough that they fell onto the floor, Kuvira straddling his lap and the bottle laying ajar on the chair. She scratched his cheek lightly, her nails going down his jaw and to his neck, and listened to the way his breath hitched.

“Would it scare you? What I do?” She asked, because she needed to know what it was they were doing here. It was different. There was nothing stopping them for once.

“No,” his hands went for her ass, but she pushed them up to above his hand, pinning him down, “just red, yellow, green it. I’ve deserved an asskicking from you since we were ten.”

She laughed into his neck, trying to stay serious and in control, but this wasn’t the way it was with everyone else. Kuvira knew the only way that she could control him was if he controlled her. Once she composed herself, she got off his lap and looked him in the eye.

“Take off your clothes and give me your belt.”  


End file.
